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Firefighters in the port of Odessa: Despite the attacks, preparations for exports continue
Photo: UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES / via REUTERS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of breaching the treaty over the missile attack on the port city of Odessa.
"Whatever Russia promises, it always finds a way not to fulfill it," the head of state said in a video shared on his Telegram news channel.
A day after the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea, Russia fired rockets at the important port of the city of Odessa, according to information from Kyiv.
In the grain agreement, Russia had pledged to let ships for export use a sea corridor and not to fire at them.
The three ports involved must therefore not be attacked.
Moscow has not yet publicly commented on the attack.
However ,
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar
said
Russian officials
had told Ankara that Moscow denied the attack.
"In our contact with Russia, the Russians told us that they had absolutely nothing to do with this attack and that they were investigating the matter very closely and in detail," Akar said in a statement.
And further: "The fact that such an incident occurred immediately after the agreement reached yesterday has really disturbed us."
Ukraine is working on grain exports
Despite the Russian attack, Ukraine does not want to stop preparations for safe grain exports.
"We are continuing technical preparations to start exporting agricultural products from our ports,"
Infrastructure Minister Alexander Kubrakov wrote
on Facebook.
According to Kubrakov, Russia fires rockets at Ukrainian infrastructure every day: "That doesn't stop our work and our resistance."
With the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin "spatted in the face UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who have made great efforts to reach an agreement," said
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko
.
German Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock
strongly condemned the Russian attack.
"The cowardly rocket attacks on the port of Odessa show that the signature of the Russian leadership currently counts for little," Baerbock told the Reuters news agency.
UN Secretary-General Guterres
also
condemned the shelling of the port, according to a spokesman.
The full implementation of the agreement is "absolutely necessary".
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell
wrote on Twitter that the
EU condemned the Russian missile attack.
He described it as "particularly reprehensible" that Russia attacked the infrastructure crucial for grain exports one day after the Istanbul agreement.
This shows "again Russia's total disregard for international law and its obligations."
The
US ambassador to Kiev, Bridget Brink
, demanded that Russia be held accountable.
"The Kremlin continues to weaponize staple foods," Brink wrote on Twitter.
The attack is monstrous.
The
British government
called the attack "absolutely appalling."
ptz/dpa/AFP/Reuters
